


burned out

by fallenangelicarus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dissociation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Sad Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallenangelicarus/pseuds/fallenangelicarus
Summary: keith has always been lost.ft. dodie's songs 'burned out' and 'when'





	burned out

**Author's Note:**

> keith has always been lost.
> 
> (please read the tags! this work has potentially triggering content, so if you're in a bad place, i beg of you to avoid this story.)

_am i the only one_

_wishing life away?_

_never caught up in the moment_

_busy begging the past to stay_

 

keith could hear shouting over the comms.

the voices of his team were muffled, like they were struggling to make it through the fog in his mind.

he felt slightly dazed, disconnected from reality as the purple glow cast shadows across the cabin and consumed his control panel. 

the feeling was distantly familiar. 

he could remember a pair of arms, and a laugh that could be heard through walls. grey eyes, like the frequent cloudy days outside, and the brilliant smile that chased it all away.

he couldn't remember a face, or a voice, to go with it. couldn't remember the clothes he wore out the door every day, the shoes that must've been scuffed and worn from the grasping hands of the vast desert, the calloused fingers that shushed him when he cried.

he remembered a silhouette in the dying light of evening, a giant in the tiny doorway of the desert shack that was once home.

~~he remembered that he never came back.~~

 

_memories painted with much brighter ink;_

_they tell me i loved, teach me how to think._

 

his garrison days came and went.

shiro's reprimanding voice echoed in his mind, words unclear.

shiro.

he took to the sky.

another laugh, a different one this time. but it was good different. it was the one that followed lectures, because he never could keep a straight face to save his life.  ~~at least, the shiro he knew couldn't.~~

he thought he was better.

and for a while, he was.

the hole inside his chest was filled like a tooth cavity. (still there, but hidden. artificial, because he didn't have a means of fixing himself.)

flying was easy.

he was always floating in his mind anyway.

 

_thousands and thousands_

_of eyes_

_just like mine,_

_aching to find_

_who they are._

 

then shiro was gone too. keith let himself go.

pilot error. he was grounded, his wings cut.

the hole was back. this time, it was bigger.

the filling was ripped out, and it took some more with it.

keith ran. 

far, far into the desert to nurse his wounds in the long abandoned shack.  ~~no longer home.~~

he tried to fix himself.

he used yarn. different colours, faded from age in one of the kitchen cabinets, accompanied by a few mothballs and a bent safety pin.

he used curling newspaper clippings and half-dried markers and rusty tacks to patch himself up.

 

_dreams and ideas should not be the same thing_

 

he was thrust into space with four other souls.

of those four, one familiar face. of those four, no familiar souls.

his plaster was torn away again, useless.

he stopped trying to fill the gap, though he could feel the edges chipping away.

the empty feeling grew familiar, the ache between his fourth and fifth ribs every time he breathed in.

he was tired of filling a space that refused to be filled.

let it. let me fall apart. he threw himself in, even as his world fell to pieces around his shoulders, and this new shiro was gone too.

falling could be flying if he imagined hard enough.

 

_oh, you can feel how they love you!_

_coated and warm but_

_that's all they can do_

_words only get through_

_if they're sharp._

 

he could hear them again, but the words made no sense.

voices bounced against the walls of his mind, coloured with panic and fear and something else.

keith's numb fingers wrapped around the controls that should not have been as familiar as they were, and he was flying again.

the glow grew brighter, and the screaming in the comms grew louder, but he couldn't move to turn off his earpiece.

he closed his eyes.

~~if he destroyed everything, there would no hole to fill.~~

 

**Author's Note:**

> we are but humans behind a screen, but i care.  
> the world will show you one day, and you will be glad you stayed.  
> i've been where keith is. many days, i go back.  
> but we'll be okay.  
> one day, we'll be okay again.


End file.
